| | "This is one of two images originally posted here on CalPhotos under the mysterious name of "Timema melodensi". Review of the literature, and personal correspondence with Timema expert Cristina Sandoval of UC Santa Barbara, confirmed my suspicion that this is a thoroughly invalid name. It's somewhat amusing (or irritating, depending on ones viewpoint) that a Google search returned a large number of "hits" from robotic-style taxonomy web sites...all of which likely culled the name directly (or indirectly) from the original posting here on CalPhotos (which pre-dates the proliferation of such robotic-style taxonomy sites).
As of this writing, there are only two species of Timema recorded from San Bernardino County: T. podura and T. nevadense. The former is recorded from locations in the San Bernardino Mnts of western San Bernardino Co. with host plants including chamise, ceanothus, oak, and mountain mahogany. The latter is recorded from the Mid Hills of far east San Bernardino Co. and its recorded host plant is juniper.
Since the photos here include juniper sprigs; and what is (vaguely) visible of the male terminalia and other aspects of the specimens in the images is consistent with T. nevadense, that seems the most likely ID and the most appropriate place to post these images.
Perhaps the CAS staffperson who uploaded these two images somehow confounded the epithet nevadense with melodensi ? Or...seeing how these and another two initially mis-named CalPhotos posts were all dated on April 1st...perhaps the names were intentionally changed as a mischievous nod to the antics often associated with that date in the US and elsewhere. (The incorrect epithets melodensi, tolse, and pode certainly seemed to have fooled some of those robotic taxonomy web sites :-)" |
